


swinging like a hypnotist's watch

by BlackCats



Category: Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Genre: F/F, Implied Relationships, giftfic, post-rebellion, spoilers ahoy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-24
Updated: 2014-01-24
Packaged: 2018-01-09 20:54:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1150690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackCats/pseuds/BlackCats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Madoka has deja-vu in all the wrong ways.<br/>(Madoka, Homura, and awaiting the inevitable.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	swinging like a hypnotist's watch

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Utsutsusu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Utsutsusu/gifts).



The points of bright color spreading out around them could have been constellations—but they were just city lights.

Like always, she suddenly found herself feeling very small, as if she was just an insignificant speck in the universe. Not even a cog in a machine. That would have been useful at least, no matter how tiny, and she almost didn’t recognize her name when it was called.

“…Madoka?”

She started guiltily, wringing her hands for an instant before casting her gaze towards Homura. The other girl was watching her with an understandably concerned expression; the amethyst earring was swinging like a clock’s pendulum.

“Ah, sorry, Homura-chan…I guess I spaced out.” Madoka rubbed the back of her neck and showed an apologetic smile.

Homura simply dipped her head in acceptance of that, lips turned up at the corners. “Don’t apologize so much. You’re fine as you are.” Her eyes flicked forward again, and Madoka picked up her pace so that she was always matching her long strides.

“Ehehe…still…” Eager to make up for her earlier rudeness, she pointed up ahead. “Isn’t that the shop you wanted to visit?”

Humming an affirmation, Homura pushed the door open and gestured for her to go first. Madoka blushed straight up to the tips of her ears and entered with a murmured thank you that made the other girl chuckle.

To say they were “friends” would be putting it too lightly. Madoka didn’t know _what_ they were, exactly, just that sometimes Homura would appear out of the blue as if checking on something. Sometimes she would stare, sometimes she would seem so distant that Madoka thought she could have put her hand right through her—a ghost, not _here_ , not _anywhere_ , not _belonging_ —and other times…

Other times she would cling to her, at night, alone, whispering again and again a ragged plea.

_“Don’t leave me, Madoka. Please don’t leave me.”_

Despite that, Madoka thought as they walked through the sweet-smelling ice cream parlor, chatting lightly about domestic things; they were not together _all_ the time. She still hung out with Hitomi, and Sayaka, just like their childhood days before she had to go overseas and—

_“…Be careful around her, Madoka.”_

_“Sayaka-chan…? Why do you say that?”_

_“I…I don’t know. But I don’t trust her. Not one bit.”_

Madoka would also spend time with Mami and Nagisa and Kyouko, and sometimes they would all group together and have parties and fun and other days they would split up, and occasionally it was just nothing and no one at all—except for Homura. _Always_ Homura, Madoka found she was never alone once she left her family for the day, one way or another.

 The ice cream was strawberry and tasted like frozen candy on her tongue. It was delicious, so cool and pleasant; a perfect match for the lazy summer evening coming up wherein it was always warm no matter what hour struck on the clock.

Homura smiled at her as they walked down the streets, off the sidewalk, near the artificial riverbank with the ever-turning windmills that glowed white and pristine in the setting sun. Streaks of red bled across the water and Madoka imagined dancing figures and black birds _drowning_ , sinking down as they—

“Madoka,” said Homura with her brows knitted in that endearingly worried way that she recognized as if she had seen it a thousand times before. “Have you been sleeping well lately?”

And she wondered how the other girl knew.

Swallowing hard, nervously licking at the last of her ice cream to buy time, she did answer, eventually. “Not really…I keep having these dreams…”

Homura smoothed a finger across her earring’s jewel and did not reply immediately. “Dreams?” She asked at last.

“Y-You’re in them…And so am I, but I…don’t remember what’s happening at all.”

And that wasn’t true, that _definitely_   wasn’t true, it was a _lie_ because she knew. She _remembered_. In her dreams she was always being held or caressed by Homura in ways that made her face burn just thinking about it and Homura would _always_ continue, staring with desperate eyes as if stars were bursting out of her skin and she was trying to hold them all in.

“They’re just dreams, Madoka. Unimportant. _Especially_ if you can’t even remember.” Homura’s eyes acquired that look—pupils and irises ragged like fractured glass—purple-stained and breaking and Madoka reached a hand out to grab hers, wanting to stop the pieces from falling and hitting the ground because if they did, she didn't think there would be anything left for her to save.

Homura jumped a little, regarding her silently before pulling her so close that Madoka breathed in and caught the scent of something cold and dark and foreign; sickly sweet, like rotting fruit and rusting steel, but it was gone in an instant.

The embrace was returned, _of course_ it was, because how could she possibly deny this small gesture to Homura?  Homura, so brave and confident and smart and pretty but so _fragile_ on the inside—somehow, Madoka knew.

“Please try to forget them,” Homura murmured into her neck and Madoka fought off a shiver that surfaced from her very core. “ _Please._ I promise they don’t mean anything.”

“Dreams…aren’t important, Homura-chan?” And somehow that felt wrong; it felt wrong, wrong, wrong.

Homura’s eyes narrowed and she smiled in a way that inched across her mouth like a crack in the sidewalk. Fixed and brutal, brought in by pressure and force. “Not at all,” she murmured, sliding one hand down the side of her face, trailing fingers through pink locks before settling upon her cheek. “They don’t matter at all here.”

And Madoka opened her mouth to hesitantly object because that was so profoundly _wrong_ that it upset her, upset delicate little Madoka who had never known magic before…

Though she swore she knew it then, when reality slowed to a standstill and ravens cawed like the coughs of the dying and the river nearby ran sickly pink and royal purple. When Homura’s eyes became dark and gaping like black holes that pulled her in and down, down, down—

But they were just city lights. And nothing more.

Like always, she suddenly found herself feeling very small, as if she was just an insignificant speck in the universe. Not even a cog in a machine. That would have been useful at least, no matter how tiny, and she almost didn’t recognize her name when it was called.

“…Madoka?”

She started guiltily, wringing her hands for an instant before casting her gaze towards Homura. The other girl was watching her with an understandably concerned expression; the amethyst earring was swinging like a medieval guillotine.

“Ah, sorry, Homura-chan…I guess I spaced out.” Madoka rubbed the back of her neck and showed an apologetic smile.

Homura simply dipped her head in acceptance of that, lips turned up at the corners. “Don’t apologize so much. You’re fine as you are. Like I always tell you.” Her eyes flicked forward again, and Madoka picked up her pace so that she was always matching her long strides.

“Ehehe…still…” Eager to make up for her earlier rudeness, she pointed up ahead. “Isn’t that the shop you wanted to visit?”

Despite her inquiry, they kept walking past it, and Homura responded only once they had  turned a corner and put it out of sight. “I have a better idea. There’s a café I’ve always wanted to visit not too far from here. Would you care to join me?”

Pressing the tips of her fingers together, Madoka smiled in earnest. “I’d love to, Homura-chan!”

A smile in return. “I’m glad. By the way…Madoka…”

“Hmm?”

“How have you been sleeping lately?”

Madoka giggled. “Just fine, actually! Um...why do you ask, though?"

“Just making sure.” Homura tossed her hair with a lazy flick of a hand. “Let me know if anything else is troubling you, all right?”

And before she had time to process and ponder that--anything _else_ , she had said, anything **else** \--Homura was opening the door to the cafe and smiling at her in that way that made her feel like, maybe, she was worth something after all.

She put it out of her mind.

**Author's Note:**

> A gift for my friend Nikko, as mentioned! I apologize for any OOCness since I haven't written PMMM in so long a time.


End file.
